-LRB- CNN -RRB- -- It has been a watershed moment for Australian cricket .

The sport-crazy country 's national team has been humiliated during the Ashes series against an England side they would once routinely embarrass .

Australia 's crushing innings and 157-run defeat in Melbourne marks the end of a golden period where the team had dominated the game for the best part of a decade .

The result means that England , the holders , take an unassailable 2-1 lead into the fifth and final Test next week and will retain the Ashes even if Australia salvage some pride with a victory in Sydney to square the series .

Will Australia 's one-day cricket reign end in 2011 ?

Yet every cloud has a silver lining .

On one hand , the hosts will have to make do without captain Ricky Ponting , still regarded as one of the finest batsmen of the modern game , who has been ruled out due to a troublesome fractured finger .

But his absence could mark a wholly different watershed : his replacement , 24-year-old Usman Khawaja , is set to become the first Muslim to play for the Australian national cricket team .

`` It 's been a childhood dream for me , '' Khawaja , who was born in Pakistan before moving to Australia as a young boy , told the Cricinfo website . `` Ever since I can remember I wanted to play for Australia . ''

Khawaja has been waiting in the wings throughout the series , and has been in sparkling form in Australia 's domestic Sheffield Shield , boasting the highest average in the competition , close to 75 .

The same ca n't be said for Ponting . A horrendous run of form with the bat , combined with his team 's largely abject displays throughout the series , has seen the 36-year-old receive a mauling from the Australian media .

England retain cricket 's Ashes with innings victory in Melbourne

But the promotion of Khawaja to the first team has come at a time when Australian cricket needs a good news story , and at a time when the country 's attitudes to immigration and multiculturalism have been put under the spotlight by recent tragedy .

As many as 50 Iraqi and Iranian Kurdish immigrants died when their boat sunk off the coast of Christmas Island last month , an Australian territory that holds thousands of failed asylum seekers in detention camps to prevent them entering the mainland .

An Amnesty International report on the conditions at the island condemned `` the sheer number of individuals who had clearly been suffering both physically and psychologically from the conditions of prolonged detention . Many had been detained for over a year , and incidents of self-harm and suicide attempts were visibly on the rise . ''

And while a survey by Australian TV network SBS in the aftermath of the tragedy found that 62 % of those questioned agreed that Australia should be a multicultural society a minority , only 48 % , `` believe migrants should be able to maintain their culture without prejudice or disadvantage . ''

But for some , the emergence of Khawaja can have a far wider impact than leveling what has been a disastrous Ashes series for Australia .

'' Obviously it will have a positive impact ; It 's good for the -LSB- Muslim -RSB- community , '' Tariq Khawaja , Usman 's father , told the Sydney Morning Herald .

'' It shows that it 's a fair system and whoever puts in effort can achieve anything in this country . Not only Muslims , any religion .

`` As a youngster , if you have passion and if you have dreams , you can make it work . ''

@highlight

Ricky Ponting injured for the fifth and final Ashes test against England

@highlight

Usman Khawaja will replace him

@highlight

Khwaja will become the first Muslim to play cricket for Australia

@highlight

England lead the series 2-1 , and have retained their titled